10 Industrial Water Towers Converted Into Awesome, Modern Homes

There’s nothing we love more here at Flavorpill HQ than awesome homes in unusual places, so after spotting a clever water tower remodel by our favorite self-taught Tunisian designer, the great Tom Dixon, over on — of all places — Airbnb, we decided to invest some time in a little Friday afternoon self-guided Google Search tour of the emerging design trend.

From a stunning retreat in a fairytale forest complete with a rooftop winter garden to a seven-story tower that’s straight out of a James Bond movie, click through to check out remarkable industrial conversions of abandoned water towers around the world. What do you think? Could you live in a concrete cylinder?

Woning Moereels Apartments by Jo Crepain of Crepain Binst Architecture — Antwerp, Belgium

Image credit: I Love Belgium

When faced with the option to tear down the concrete structure or re-purpose the building, the Belgian municipality decided on the latter. Übertalented Jo Crepain accepted the assignment and created a stunning home with panoramic views of the surrounding forest and a winter garden on the roof. The coolest thing about this to-die-for home: the original water reservoir was left exposed on the ground floor. Perfect for a unique indoor pool party and private late-night skinny dipping.

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I still get such a surprise every time I see our house featured in articles like this. Ours was a seven-year journey resulting in something we're all very proud of. Renovating any building is always going to be a challenge (much more so than building from scratch), but all these amazing renovations would have been faced with two additinal chalenges. The first being all the work that needs to be done at height (our building is 90ft high and has 6 floors) - even the furniture had to craned in through the roof! Secondly, everything is in-the-round, meaning curved doors, glass, and most frustrating of all, plasterwork. Trust me, no plasterer likes working on curved walls and tricky architectural detailing! Anyway, eight years later we are still here and loving the place! Russell (www.lymmwatertower.com)

Well this is a great selection - beautiful - but you've left out the house designed by Peter DeBretteville for himself and his wife Shiela. Its in New Haven, and they both teach at Yale, so I guess they are just totally "under the radar".

Obviously never seen the one in Sunset Beach, California! (I once did a wedding reception in the top 360 room) It's a lot like that one by Tom Dixon, but overlooking... you know, ....ORANGE COUNTY SUNSETS AND BEACHES!

This article seemed to have such promise, but the interior shots seemed to be of soulless, most empty rooms---singularly unattractive---except number 10.

In the early-mid '80s my friends Ian, James and I moved into a water tower atop James' building on W.14 st in NYC. Ian spent the entire winter of '84-5 there, while I was in Europe - partly out of necessity as his mom was a crazy horder and their apt had become unlivable. It was made of Cedar and very nice ... a long story I intend to write about later this year.

Tom Dixon, OBE (born 1959, Sfax, Tunisia) is a self-taught Tunisian designer.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Dixon_(industrial_designer)

Hi, Awesome story! I was intrigued by your opening paragraph though where it implies (unless I am misreading something) that the great Tom Dixon of London, UK is actually a Tunisian? Is this true? Thanks a bunch!

This is great, but probably wouldn't work with most water towers in the U.S. because they are just big old water balloons made of metal, sitting on tripods. I noticed that, outside of the Tank House in NYC (which doesn't seem to be a water tower - although I see one behind it), they are all in Europe. Europeans save old buildings - Americans don't very often, unless forced to.